A lottery is an arrangement whereby tokens are distributed or sold, and the winning token or tokens are determined by chance in a random drawing. Prizes are usually cash or goods. In the more general sense, the term may be applied to any activity whose outcome depends on fate: They considered their deployment in the war as a lottery.
Most states enact laws that regulate lotteries, and most delegate to a state lottery commission the responsibility for promoting, selling, and overseeing a lottery program. Lottery commissions also select retailers and license them to sell tickets, train lottery employees, provide technical support to lottery retail outlets, redeem winning tickets, distribute prizes, pay jackpots to winners, and collect and report sales data. They also set the odds for winning, and vary them depending on factors such as the size of the jackpot and ticket prices.
There is a risk that the lottery can be addictive, and even those who win large sums of money often find themselves worse off than they were before winning. Some of the early criticisms of the lottery focused on its addictiveness, but more recent criticisms have tended to focus on its regressivity, in that it disproportionately affects low-income households.